I don’t have a lot of extra money. Okay, scratch that, I have pretty much none, but I found a company that was willing to install a couple of cameras as part of their own neighborhood security system for free. The cameras I can personally access came with a monthly fee. It’s not cheap, but it’s not that expensive either, and I’ll probably only need them for a few months. Maybe even a month. I can’t see the guy not slipping up.
I’ve been watching the house like a freaking deranged hawk all day. This morning, the security company came. It took them the better part of the day to get the cameras up. Since I was in my studio room upstairs, pretending to be writing, I had the perfect vantage point of Mr. Mob’s house. His house is just a bungalow, but mine has an extra story, which means I have the height advantage and can see pretty much everything that happens over there.
At noon, a courier truck pulled up and stuck a package in the mailbox. I kept waiting for Mr. Mob to open the front door and snatch it out of the mailbox and slither back into his plastic-clad living room, but he never did. I watched. I waited.
Around five, the garage opened up, and his black car pulled out and went down the street. He never came back.
It’s just past eight now, and after I admire my new camera, I slip back into the house. I can’t stop myself from going to the side window in the living room, the one that offers a good view of Mr. Mob’s front doorstep and studying the mailbox. I can still see the flap of the package sticking out. The mailbox is massive. Whoever owned the house obviously either ordered a lot of shit or liked to compensate for something. Either way, it was a pretty big package, and the guy managed to stuff it into the mailbox except for that flap.
It’s sticking out, taunting me.
I need evidence. Right now, I don’t even have a name. I doubt calling the police and telling them a guy named Mr. Mob is killing people in his house will fly.
I don’t want to do it. I’m afraid he has cameras set up, which means he’ll see me. Then again, if that were true, wouldn’t he have seen the package get delivered and gone out to get it before he left? Maybe I’m just paranoid. All I have to do is sneak over. I’ll grab a casserole dish or something, so it looks like I’m bringing a peace offering after last night. I know he’s not home, but if he has cameras, he won’t notice anything suspicious.
No, that won’t work. I’ll still have to open his mailbox and try and get a peek at the name on the envelope.
I shut the blinds and flop down on the couch for a minute. I think hard, so hard that my head aches. Okay, maybe it actually aches because I haven’t gone to bed yet, and it’s nearly nighttime again. The evil spider is probably still taking up residence in my bed, which means it looks like I’m going to sleep on the couch tonight. Knowing I won’t be able to sleep if I don’t get a peek at the name, I continue thinking hard, and it takes me about seven minutes to come up with something brilliant.
I’ll write a letter—a note telling him I’m sorry. I’ll knock on the door, and when there’s no answer, I’ll put the note in the mailbox. The package is huge, so hopefully, I can rearrange it a little to get the letter in, and then I’ll be able to sneak a peek at the name on the front.
It’s so ingenious that I nearly fist pound the air.
I think about the spider being in the room, staring at me from the ceiling and offering me a fist bump back, and I shudder. I’m seriously going to have to do something about my eight-legged intruder. I can’t give up my bed forever. What if he really is heat-seeking, and he finds me on the couch? Is nothing sacred anymore?
I leave my spider worries for the moment and go instead into the kitchen, where I pull out a pad of paper and a pen from the drawer. I quickly scrawl a note about being sorry for the night before. I explain how I have an irrational fear of spiders, which is true. I sign the note with my first name only. I’m sure if he really wanted to, Mr. Mob could find out what my last name is, but I’m not going to just give it out, and not signing it would be weird.
When that’s done, I force myself to inhale a few deep, calming breaths. I keep that up as I open the front door, clear the porch, and make my way over to his house.